The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for the care and adornment of fingernails, and particularly, to methods and apparatus for drying polish applied to fingernails.
Many manicurists do not utilize apparatus to assist in drying fingernails after a polish or brightener has been applied. As a result, customers typically can be found in a sitting area, perhaps waving their hands back and forth, waiting for their fingernails to dry before leaving the salon. The customer normally cannot resume conventional seditary activities, such as reading, before the nails dry. Frequently, the customer's desire to do something productive prevails over the warnings of the manicurist, and the carefully applied polish becomes damages because the "wet" nail contacts clothes or papers. As a result, the damaged nail must be redone, and still more time spend waiting for the nail polish to dry.
Devices are available to assist the manicurist in applying the correct tint or shade of polish to the nails through proper lighting techniques, such as devices shown in French Pat. No. 1,005,277 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,478,763. Suitable methods and apparatus satisfactory to both the manicurist and the customer, however, do not exist for drying the nails after the nail polish has been applied. Customers have been known to use conventional washroom hand devices (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,698,804 and 2,714,151), hair dryers (U.S. Pat. No. 2,496,232) and hair blowers (U.S. Pat. No. 2,713,627) to assist in drying nails. These devices, however, are not intended to dry fingernails, and frequently the customer will damage the nails by attempting to use the device rather than shortening the drying time for the nails.
Prior art devices specifically intended to dry one's fingernails have previously been devised, but have not been widely accepted. Such devices are frequently extremely complicated and inefficient, and do not reduce the drying time for nails to any appreciable extent. U.S. Pat. No. 3,258,853 discloses a complicated nail dryer which uses heated air to assist at drying nails. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,712,312 and 4,206,556 disclose more simplistic nail drying apparatus, wherein heated air is discharged from the device toward the nails of the user. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,255,871 discloses a nail polish dryer with a plurality of exit ports for directing the drying air against the nails of the user. Such devices, however, are inefficient for drying one's nails, and thus have not been widely accepted by the manicurist or the customer.
The disadvantages of the prior art are overcome by the present invention, however, and improved methods and apparatus are hereinafter provided for drying the polish applied to fingernails.